The Scottish Government’s EU Continuity Bill aims to ensure that Scottish law continues to function without interruption when the UK leaves the EU on 1 January 2021. At this point, the EU’s world-renowned environmental protections will no longer apply to Scotland. As part of the new measures, the Bill intends to establish a new environment watchdog: Environmental Standards Scotland (ESS). Environmental groups have been campaigning for amendments to increase the watchdog’s independence and give it more teeth to maintain the levels of environmental protection that currently benefit nature in Scotland.
In debates this week, MSPs agreed amendments requiring members of the watchdog to have environmental expertise. Ministers agreed to discuss further changes so that the watchdog has enough funding and to allow the funding issue to be scrutinised by parliament before the final vote on the Bill in December. They also agreed to look into new measures to ensure that Scotland’s process of staying in line with the EU (the so-called ‘keeping pace’ power) maintains high environmental standards.
However, amendments that would allow the watchdog to take action on complaints about environmental damage raised by individual citizens did not receive government support. This weakens the ability of people in Scotland to tackle environmental damage, once the UK leaves the EU at the end of 2020.